An eclectic blog on which appears daily one-thousand word essays on somethingorother.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

INDEX OF REVIEWS

This list of reviews is what you get if you put "review" in the “search strip” under the map on the right column. No cap. There are other reviews which I’ll look for later. These are not grouped, edited, and are in the order the computer used -- I have no idea on what basis.

In addition, I'm going to compile all the reviews into one document and then post that somehow as a pdf. Maybe I'll sell it on a CD. Or just send it to anyone who sends me an email asking for it. When I first began to do this in ...

"STATE AND MAIN" and "FAR FROM HEAVEN:" Reviews. My BBC mystery and costume serieses are so absorbing that I tend to forget the rest of the video world, so I thought I'd freshen up my head a bit and look at some ...

REVIEWING THE REVIEWS. Now that so many people are doing Print On Demand books and some folks have noticed how good a few of them are, the new “demand” is for someone to point readers at the good stuff. One of ...

The content is revolutionary, just as promised in the several reviews and radio interviews that attracted me to the book in the first place. It's in three parts: a history of how humans learned to read; what happens in the brain ...

This topic started out talking back to journalists who were asked to review art. They are either salaried or working on a per-piece basis, but in the end they are at the mercy of an editor who is exposed to the pleasure of his ...

One of the blurb reviews (by Neil McMahon) says that when he first began to read he was “taken aback, then disturbed.” After fifty pages he was drawn in and “humbled.” I had the same reaction, probably because the first ...

“Lydia” (Tabitha Wady) is described by one unkind imdb.com reviewer as “horse-faced,” which she certainly is not. Her huge eyes, fillip of a nose, and generous flexible mouth express a range from the ecstasy of showing off ...

On imdb.com there are 130 reviews and reactions, maybe evenly split between the cynics who hated it and the idealists who loved it. They would be happy to tear the movie in half, the humorous whimsy of the first part on one ...

GILLES' WIFE is a movie so French that you must read the book on which it is based in French. I don't know whether I could but I'm motivated to try, if I could afford to buy it. In the movie language is not a problem, partly ...

Gender binaries have become so troublesome that social philosophers have begun to reflect on them. When I say “trouble,” I mean murder. People are murdered because they don't fit our notions of gender binaries.

"THE FORTIES HOUSE" A Review. At least I've found the perfect cure for whining about the economy and my diabetes diet. I'm watching the "house" series from the BBC and tonight was the 1940's house. I had thought this ...

"THE LAST SEPTEMBER": Review. “The Last September,” based on the Elizabeth Bowen novel, is about the last days of the Anglo-Irish in County Cork, Ireland. In the “Ascendancy” of the 17th century these privileged people ...

"AN IDEAL HUSBAND": REVIEW. Oscar Wilde is a name that can make people either smile or bristle. I tend to see him in the terms set by Peter Egan in “Lillie,” one of my all-time favorite BBC series. There he is witty, protective ...

"LORD OF THE FLIES" Review. Continuing with my self-imposed cinema class using Netflix with commentaries, I watched both movie versions of “Lord of the Flies,” one after the other on the same evening. It's been decades ...

THE RED SHOE DIARIES: Review. My red shoes. Never worn. My knees went out about the time I bought them and I never wore high heels after that. These are not as high as the heels in “The Red Shoe Diaries” which is the ...

"RABBIT-PROOF FENCE":Review. For many years I've heard about “Rabbit Proof Fence” but never got around to watching it, though I'm especially fond of Australian films and, of course, attuned to the theme because it is just ...

JACKSON POLLOCK: LIFE & DEATH ON LONG ISLAND: A Review. People around here understand why I would take an interest in “genius” artists with strong wives, though they think in terms of Charlie and Nancy Russell.

“The Princess Mononoke” is part Western, part Lord of the Rings, part Samurai tale, part enviro-fable and part Mowgli. In the US it was released in 1999. “Anime” (Japanese animated) in genre, this beautiful film can be seen as ...

LADIES IN LAVENDER: Review and Reflection. The first time I saw Judi Dench was when I was in college (1957-1961) and she came to Chicago with Lawrence Harvey in Henry V. There's a little scene where he is courting by ...

REGENCY HOUSE PARTY: A review. Thanks to “Regency House Party,” part of the BBC “house” series, I now know quite a bit more about the Regency period, though nothing more about houses. As I watch these DVD's, I'm ...

ONE LAST DANCE: A review & reflection. Watching “One Last Dance” is tough now that we know Patrick Swayze is locked in combat with pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal and painful of the kind. Yet he continues to ...

THE 1900'S HOUSE: A Review. Chronologically, the “1900's House” comes before the “Manor House,” but I didn't order them that way, so I'm just watching however they arrive. This one really WAS about the house itself, ...

It was probably a good thing that I've waited until now that I'm nearly seventy before watching Sybil. Her insane mother was altogether too convincing. More like my mother-in-law than my mother, but neither of them was ...

"THE BOY WHO WAS RAISED AS A DOG, And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook" is quite plainly meant to remind you of Oliver Sack's beloved collection, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” You know ...

"THE WICKER MAN": A Review. Here's a pair of movies by the same name for a comparative religion or sociology class to compare and contrast. The only trouble with it is that you'll have to watch the newer version, which is ...

"JACKALOPE DREAMS": a Review. When I was working on my bio of Bob, I would joke that I didn't know whether I should say I was writing nonfiction, though I was carefully leaving out or even changing a few things to protect ...

To evaluate or analyze an event that has already left, is pointless to their mind, because the point of a review is to sell tickets. The editor (and publisher) want control over tickets sold so that they will be sure to get advertising ...

My idea about reviews is that you should know where the reviewer is coming from. In this case .... Here's a Doig reader, who just saw this new novel in Costco the other day, and read your review from first word to last. I happen ...

Marketing (I suspect this means mostly listing in pages like those in Bloomsbury Review -- a photo of the cover and a squib about content, ten to a page for four pages) 4. The “book return program,” which costs $699 for one ...

Sometimes reviews are as interesting or even MORE interesting than the books they're supposed to be reviewing. My most recent ... (Haven't gotten hold of Sennett's book yet -- it might be as good as the review!) McLemee ...

The subject matter moves around among categories which are basically: regional, Blackfeet, Bob Scriver, religion, memoir, current events, reviews of books and movies, and a few more. Some are meant to be eventually ...

If you use the search strip under the red map at the right, you can pull up earlier reviews by me of Cook's previous two novels. He creates a world, not just a plot. Under the action and the fooling around that are characteristic of ...